Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez said Wednesday that the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting was “freaking awful” and that “something needs to change.”
Martinez, in his fifth season as Nationals manager, made the comments while holding back tears during a press conference before his team’s home game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday afternoon. The shooting at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday left at least 19 fourth-graders and two teachers dead.
“Honestly, it’s freaking awful,” Martinez said after being asked about the shooting. “My condolences to the families, those poor kids. It’s not right. It really isn’t. Something needs to change.”
Martinez replied, “Obviously the gun control,” when he was asked what he thinks needs to change.
“We need to do something in this country before it gets any worse,” he said. “It’s not good.”
The Nationals, with every other MLB team, held a moment of silence before Wednesday’s game, just as they did prior to Tuesday’s contest.
Martinez joins many other sports figures in responding to the massacre at the Texas elementary school. Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr, as he’s done after previous mass shootings, told reporters Tuesday that he wasn’t going to take questions about his basketball team and instead expressed his outrage about the shooting and the nation’s gun control laws.
“I’m fed up. I’ve had enough,” Kerr said before his team’s playoff game Tuesday night. “We’re going to play the game tonight. But I want every person here, every person listening to this, to think about your own child or grandchild, mother or father, sister, brother. How would you feel if this happened to you today?”
• Jacob Calvin Meyer can be reached at jmeyer@washingtontimes.com.
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